


Ceremony of Innocence

by cassiejamie



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, OCs - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-14
Updated: 2009-07-21
Packaged: 2017-10-07 14:42:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassiejamie/pseuds/cassiejamie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later he would be nauseated by how weak he'd been in that moment, but right then, stripped of his uniform and gear, Pavel was just another human being in need of rescue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold

**I.**

  
They were there barely twenty-four hours when the men came, looking Chekov and McCoy over like they were simply picking out a dessert. Clad in only their regulation undergarments of a plain white teeshirt and matching white briefs, Bones knew they probably were and he feared for the boy at his side.

Though the _Enterprise_ and its crew had risen triumphant in the face of adversity in the past, it had never been without some damage of one kind or another. Death, abuse, straight-out torture, and battles that left the hull of the ship damaged and Scotty sulking – nothing had thus far been left untouched out here in the uncivilized frontier. Four years into the mission and the stories they would tell upon their return to Earth would surpass the battle with Nero and the _Narada_, though there would always be ones that would only ever be mentioned in mission reports.

And as Chekov whimpered, "Doctor..." while clearly wanting to hide behind the elder man but somehow remaining to his left, he knew they were facing one of those times.

"Keep your mouth shut, kid, and don't interfere," he ordered in a low, even tone.

The men outside their gated cell continued to stare at them for long minutes, yet Bones knew exactly which one they would choose to sate themselves with. Seriously – he was only thirty-five but he looked older with a couple of strands of gray at his temples and a biting wit that kept most people away. How he'd managed to bed the infamous Jim Kirk and keep him in his bed, Bones couldn't say in light of the oft-stated facts; he loved Jim, truly, and as the gate was unlocked, he wished desperately that the man was there.

Chekov yelped when he was grabbed by the hair and again when he was dragged toward the open cell door. His eyes glittered in terror – he'd taken the required courses prior to graduation and knew the statistics – and he watched Bones, pleading silently for help involuntarily. Later he would be nauseated by how weak he'd been in that moment, but right then, stripped of his uniform and gear, Pavel was just another human being in need of rescue.

"Hey, the kid's not going to be any fun," Bones announced, jerking in the hold of two guards. "He's too damned small and girly – he'll squeal like a stuck pig. You wanna fuck someone, fuck me. I'll give you bastards a good time."

Whether it was the cursing or the tone of his voice, it didn't matter, only that Chekov (twenty-one years old, with a sailor's mouth at times and not a virgin, yet would always be the same young, innocent teenager from their first meeting in Bones' mind) was tossed to the side like a ragdoll. His head bashed into the cement wall, forcing him into unconsciousness; McCoy would have begged for a chance to check on him, to make sure he wasn't bleeding from a head injury, but he'd been pulled from the room before he could form the words.

He could barely keep his feet under him as he was led further and further from their cell, through dank, gray corridors toward some unknown destination. They were pushing him forward and down, trying to keep him off-balance; he would not give them the pleasure of seeing him fall on his face, but every step was unstable – broken ankle, he realized, pain suddenly shooting through him at the recognition – and the adrenaline rush from earlier ebbed.

Exhaustion was setting in as hormone levels changed, as energy reserves kicked in. He'd already been awake for thirty-one hours when Jim had called him planetside with a medical emergency that wouldn't make it to the sickbay if the red-shirted fellow didn't get some medical care on the ground and he had not slept one wink since their capture. Maybe if he'd been with Sulu, Jim, or Spock, he'd have gladly crashed out on the thin pallets in the cell, but with Chekov, he couldn't. The kid was Starfleet trained, but still very much a young man who by all rights, should not have been off the ship.

Fucking Jim had told the boy, who'd only celebrated his birthday a few days ago, that it would be a simple recon mission. "_We're just going to observe the local peoples, take some notes, and report to Command how far along they are in their industrial evolution. Federation is real antsy to snatch this planet up for a strategic outpost as soon as the people have moved beyond pre-warp,_" he'd said from his place at the head of the conference room table. "_I think it's time Chekov got some field experience._"

"Yeah, great field experience, Jim," he muttered darkly, accent thickening from the tiredness and the ache in his leg.

Then the guards opened the door to a thunderous room, other men and some women lazing about. He heard a scream from somewhere in the back; some other unlucky soul who was merely an object to be mistreated and scorned. He gulped at the realization of what he'd done to protect the boy and the consequences that it would bring as he was shoved hard, falling onto the damp, disgusting floor.

His face burned from the scrape of concrete; a droplet of blood pearled at the edge of a new cut, and he wiped it away before being jolted to his feet by three pairs of large hands. His heart began to pound in his chest, a staccato against his ribs, when Bones caught sight of the edge of the room where a bloody woman lay, throat slit.

Pushed onto a dirty mattress on the floor, stomach to it, he swallowed around the ball in his throat and went limp. A knife came up his back to cut his shirt, a cool line drawn up his spine, and he closed his eyes, refusing to open them even when they told him to.

As a hand splayed wide on his neck, he couldn't help the thought that popped into his head – the wonder of where Jim and his heroic rescue was.

**II.**

  
They didn't kill him, though there were several times Bones wished they had. Particularly as he lay on the floor of his cell once more, on his side, while his stomach churned and his head pounded and his entire body throbbed. Chekov had tried to give him basic first aid – cleaning his wounds, bandaging what he could with the scraps of McCoy's shirt and underwear – but what he needed was a painkiller, an antibiotic, and something to help him forget the whole ordeal.

His medical kit had been taken by the natives, ignorant enough to not notice the universal symbol of Medical staff on his belongings or perhaps uncaring, so he had no hope of relief from the soreness nor protection against the infection he was sure to get laying his bleeding wounds so close to the wet floor. The pallet, he figured, probably wasn't much better in the cleanliness department, yet it kept him from laying directly on the concrete, and psychologically, that's all that mattered.

"Doctor," Chekov's voice broke into his sluggish thoughts, "They have brought us bread and water. Do you think you could eat?"

Prepared to reply with a scathing retort out of habit, Bones sat up with a groan and stopped when he saw the look on the other's face. "Gimme the water, son," he said with a sigh, knowing he'd have to soak the bread, even as soft as it was, if he wanted to keep it down.

Chekov dallied for a minute with his own, fingering the bread like he didn't know what to do with it and sniffing at it experimentally. Taking a small bite, he chewed it for a long minute and swallowed, his hands going to his lap as he fiddled with the hunk of bread once more.

"Why did you..."

"Kid," Bones cut him off. "You're a scientist in a gold shirt – for all the shit you know about the ship, you know nothing about what happens when we lowly humans dare to step foot on other worlds. You've still got some fucking innocence about you, because you haven't been out in this world for long enough to kill it and that's a really good goddamned thing. Now me? I've been though shit times like this before," he admitted. "Not exactly this, but the circumstances don't matter."

"I'm not a child, Doctor. They should have taken me." He wicked a hand through his hair, looking sick. "You're _bleeding_. Were it me, you could better help with the wounds – I have no training."

"And what would I have helped you with? Dirty fabric from pallets that've sat here for God knows how long? Water? Bread? No, Pavel," Bones told him. He held up a hand a second later, one finger pointing at him sharply. "And stop arguing with me."

Chekov opened his mouth to do just that, but thought better of himself and his jaw snapped shut with an audible click. Having spent four years on an intergalactic vessel in the far reaches of space, Chekov had learned when to pick his battles with McCoy and though he did not like it, this was one of those times when silence was the better option.

He chewed his bread in contemplation, his brilliant mind working to understand the doctor's logic. He was a medical professional and was better equipped to deal with the injuries incurred by the abuse, not to mention he was a better combatant – his knowledge of humanoid bodies meant he knew where to hit to bring down an attacker without taking a life. Allowing them to incapacitate him, as First Officer Spock would say, was illogical.

"And do me a favor, will ya'? When they get us out of this hellhole, do not tell anyone about this," McCoy demanded, "Particularly the Captain. Bastard's overprotective enough."

"You'll need..." Chekov started, once more cut off by a tone of annoyance.

"Beckett's my physician and she honors confidentiality even when Jim orders her not to." Bones winced as he shifted about on the pallet, the wound on his upper thigh stretching painfully from the exertion. "Kid, I need you to promise me, because unless they attempt a daring rescue within the next few hours, those Neanderthal guards are going to return for me – don't argue – and I don't know if I'll be conscious when they bring me back."

"Chyort voz'mi," he murmured under his breath and forced a swallow of water down; his throat felt tight – how could he promise to keep such a secret? The Captain was McCoy's partner, his lover, and while he wouldn't know what happened after judicious use of a dermal regenerator, it was just common sense to let him become aware of the atrocities inflicted upon McCoy. But it was yet another time where his choices were equally bad, one as torturous as the other.

With a choked nod, he acquiesced, "I will tell no one."

"Good man." Bones clapped him on the shoulder weakly, then pushed another bite of soggy bread past his lips. "Trust me, Chekov, it's better this way," he said once he'd polished off his drink and tossed the last of the bread to the younger man.

"For whom, doctor? Surely not yourself," he shot back. Pavel wanted to scream; he was the baby of the crew, the person whose birthday was, every year, laden with teasing gifts like sippy cups and teddy bears. It was a gentle ribbing from the officers he respected, each poking at his youthful innocence like it were something to be coveted with the way they fawned over his inexperience. It was aggravating at times and downright loathsome as it was right then. "You try to protect me from something you imply is inevitable because I am a child in your eyes and you suffer because of it."

"I wish I could explain it, kid, but you're too angry to fucking listen. So just goddamn trust me, okay?" The hiss of his words reached his ears at the same time as a clanging began in the corridor beyond their cell door. "Don't try to get between me and them, Pavel," he instructed, then, to be sure that the boy wouldn't meddle, pushed himself to his feet and hobbled his way to the barred gate.

**III.**

  
Rescue would not come for two days and in that time, Bones had found himself fighting a battle on three fronts: in the cell with Chekov, who'd begun to heal his numerous injuries with a jumble of hyposprays from Bones' medical kit that he'd successfully managed to get returned to him, against the men abusing him physically for answers he was unwilling to give, and among the guards who'd sooner kill him as a dispensable plaything simply to avoid feeding him. He was growing more and more exhausted, drained physically and emotionally.

"Fifty milligrams," he whimpered at the kid just an hour before the cavalry would arrive. Splayed out on the pallet, Bones' cheeks were rosy from fever and though his backside no longer hurt, having chosen to accelerate healing in that area of the body the minute they'd dangled a regenerator over his head and told him the price for it. Barely charged, it had died seconds after Chekov had pulled it away from his skin.

McCoy still had cuts and bruises over the rest of his torso and limbs, some edged in pink and hot to the touch but not one of the antibiotic hypos they'd been graced with were effective enough to fight the growing infection. He was a breeding ground for bacteria at the moment and as he directed the Ensign to the right medication and dosage to try to alleviate his pain, he knew he might not make it back to the ship if help didn't come soon.

"That does not seem enough," Chekov stated, pushing the tiny device to Bones' neck. "I have heard you give triple that dose to the Captain in the past."

"Use more on the Captain because otherwise the stubborn fool would go gallivanting around the ship before he should," he admitted. "Gotta keep him unconscious or incapable of standing to avoid it."

Chekov wisely chose to not comment at that, to not point out that perhaps someone should take that information and use it against him since he clearly was as bad as the Captain when it came to personal safety. He could talk all he wanted about Jim Kirk's stupidity, but McCoy was equally as bad especially in light of his horrific incompetence at being a patient – he should've at least had the decency to pass out, saving Chekov from having to listen to him gasp when he moved his now nearly-immobile and swollen foot.

The painkiller, a synth-narcotic mixed with a light sedative, did little to ease the pain or the fever. He needed an opioid-class medication, which would stop his brain from effectively translating the messages from the rest of his body that screamed of pain; the synth-narcotic class drugs had been created at Starfleet Medical to treat the sometimes heartbreaking agony of its people without the terrible side effects. However, they were looked down upon by those on the front lines of exploration since they didn't adequately treat pain, requiring higher doses (which always had side effects, no matter what Starfleet said) so they tended to be avoided, used as a last resort or, as in Jim's case, used for those allergic to other common medications.

For a moment, the only sound to be heard was the steady drip-drip-drip from the corridor and the pound of feet beyond the south-facing wall of the cell. Chekov couldn't take it; the silence between them was awkward and festering, the air scented with infection as he tried gallantly to ignore the possibility of McCoy's death.

Because it hadn't just been sexual assault, no, the first night had been about using a prisoner for some disgusting satiation of sexual appetite, but thereafter, he'd been taken and beaten for information. Who were they? Where did they come from? Were there more people like themselves? All questions he'd been posed and refused to answer, leading him to more pummelings and being tossed to the guards like he was nothing.

"The Captain is coming," Chekov assured when he could no longer take the lack of thought-drowning noise. "He always comes."

"Yeah, kid, he's coming." Bones smiled sadly – Jim would rescue them, that wasn't a lie or a false hope, but his heart was beginning to flutter in his chest and that did not bode well for himself. "He's a good man, Jim. Stupid as fuck sometimes and he's got the self-preservation skills of a gazelle near a pride of lions, but a good man. You tell him that."

"You will tell him," Chekov shot back, heart racing suddenly. "He'll be here soon. I know it."

McCoy nodded, telling the younger man, "I'm sure he will be, but I'm going to be unconscious long before then." He shimmied about until he was more comfortable, facing Chekov and letting one hand fall on an outstretched ankle. "Remember your promise, kid – not one word."

"Yes, sir," he replied, "I'll tell no one but Dr. Beckett."

Then Bones nodded again, shuddered, closed his eyes, and was unconscious; Pavel felt the panic rise in him at the sight of the stoic, brash doctor still and quiet on the dirty pallet. Naked save for the bandages, Bones looked vulnerable and helpless and he felt something die in his chest – hope, perhaps, or some of that coveted innocence. Whatever it was, he wanted to vomit and hide in the corner, despite his status as an officer of the fleet. Cowardice _was_ punishable by court-martial, after all.

Phaser fire stole his attention ten minutes later, zipping by the cell door in blasts of light and searing noise. James Kirk's voice was sharp in the fray when the guards began to fight back with their own energy-pulse based weaponry and he realized shock must have set in – he was so focused on the reality that their supposedly pre-warp civilization was not as pre-warp as they had believed. Such weapons had come into being only after the construction of the first ship-mounted phaser array.

He was yanked to his feet and from his thoughts, languid on his feet after the days of bare minimum sustenance. It took a minute for him to identify the man holding him up as the First Officer, but once he did, Pavel asked, "Have you come to rescue us?"

"Indeed, we have," Spock answered, "Do you require immediate medical attention?"

"No." He pointed to Bones. "The doctor needs a doctor," he said, forcing himself to remain upright with eyes open, and, looking at Jim whose eyes glittered with barely controlled anger, went on, "He says you're a good, stupid man."

"Ensign, we'll discuss this later. Chapel, can he be moved to the shuttle or will it cause him harm?" Jim asked, continuing to lean against the gate with his phaser ready to be fired should anyone come to the cell.

Her answer was swift and lilting, but Chekov could hear the fear in her voice as she spoke. "He can be moved but he's critical – I suggest that once we're within transporter range, we beam back." She pushed the tricorder into her own kit and looked to Pavel then Spock, "Do you think you can carry him?"

"The Ensign would impinge upon my ability to return fire appropriately, but if it is best, I could bear his weight back to the _Enterprise_."

Chekov looked between them confusedly. What the hell...? Why would he need to be carried when his strength, built up by the adrenaline rush of being found, was returning in leaps and bounds?

Distracted by his thoughts, the hypo was against the delicate skin of his neck before he had a chance to argue and then he, too, was unconscious.

**IV.**

  
He woke in Medical Bay, the senior staff clustered in one corner talking in hushed tones. They all wore matching expressions of worry, faces wrinkled from exhaustion and the members of the rescue party still wore their rumpled uniforms – clearly he'd not been asleep for too long.

Across from him lay McCoy, clothed in fresh white scrubs, while the computer's sensors beeped away in time with his heart. Beckett had run regenerators over him, reducing the sickening number of cuts, bruises, and scrapes, and set his broken ankle to rights. It still looked tender and painful, but Chekov knew it was in a far better state than it had on the planet's surface.

"...and I am the Captain of this vessel! If there is an injury to either of my men that you've not disclosed to me, Beckett, I'll find you insubordinate and you'll spend two days in confinement. Am I understood?" Kirk's voice cut through the last of the fog in his head, piercing and authoritative. It mirrored the tone so often heard from McCoy that it was almost amusing to hear it out of his partner's mouth; the old Russian saying about couples resembling each other came to mind.

"Yes, sir," Beckett replied in an even, unflinching tone. "Now get out of sickbay – they're safely aboard and not one of you has properly slept in days. I'll contact all of you should there be any changes," she ordered in return, her own tone of voice as hard as his had been, and watched them go before moving to Chekov's bed. "Welcome back," she said with a smile, reaching for the tricorder and running a quick scan.

Once satisfied that he was well, if a bit tired and hungry, she allowed him to hop from the bed and take a warm shower in one of Medical Bay stalls; built for decontamination and scrub down, they were more often used by the crew to clean up after a mission gone wrong. McCoy had often remarked to his staff that there was nothing more therapeutic than washing off the stink of a failure, which they all would learn firsthand as the years went by and the death toll for their mission accrued.

Bathed and redressed in another clean set of scrubs, Chekov returned to his bed at her side and slid onto the cushioned surface. "How is Doctor McCoy?" he asked once he'd stretched out his legs and gotten comfortable, head down on the thickly padded headrest.

"He's stable," she answered. "I'll be keeping him for a few days for observation, but there doesn't appear to be any permanent damage." Beckett smoothed a hand over the blanket she'd tossed over his legs and drew in a breath.

While tricorders were a valuable device in the medical arsenal, they were still electronic equipment and they could fail or have a bug in the software or have an error and as such, even doctors who'd trained in modern settings with precisely the same model took its readings with a grain of salt. Self-reporting supplemented gaps in the read-outs as did information from others when available, and at the moment, it was with some trepidation that Beckett thought over how best to ask what she needed to.

"Ensign," she started, "Pavel, despite Captain Kirk's posturing I want to assure you that he cannot punish me rightly under Starfleet regulations for failure to disclose an injury or sickness unless it is pertinent to a mission. In this case, what has happened to yourself and Doctor McCoy is _not_ considered pertinent as Command has already ruled that no further contact should be made with this world until such time as they start encroaching onto Federation space. That said, did anything happen on the planet that I should know about? Any injuries I need to make note of?"

Chekov rubbed over his sternum with one hand as she finished, his chest burning as bile crept up his esophagus and threatened to spill past his lips. His heartbeat pulsed at his temples, his ears were crowded in white noise – she didn't already know. The tricorder had not told her of the tissues he'd healed a scant twelve hours before...

No, it had to have notified her of the recently regenerated flesh, the knitted tears, yet there she stood, asking him as though she were ignorant of the abuse the elder man had suffered.

He closed his eyes, "Doctor McCoy..."

"I'm not asking about him, Pavel. He woke up just as I finished with his ankle and spoke with me about what's happened, so I already know what he asked you to promise." She sighed, brushing a hand over a wayward curl, and asked, "Did anything happen to you? He swears not, but I want to be sure."

"I have not suffered as Doctor McCoy has," he responded after a minute had passed, eyes still resolutely shut.

She was not placated, however. Too many times she'd seen the men of the _Enterprise_, like McCoy, swear they hadn't been sexually assaulted, particularly when medical scans showed nothing: oral sodomy wouldn't show in the tests nor would manual stimulation resulting in orgasm, the latter of which had sent one young lieutenant into a tailspin. Beckett did not want to see that horrible break down occur again, especially with Pavel Chekov.

"Sweetheart, I need you to look at me when you say that." Soft tone of voice, gentle hands wrapped around the edge of his bed.

Slowly, he forced his eyelids back and her face came into view. "I was not..." he paused, wanting to use the right word and rooted around in his mind for it, "...assaulted." He hoped she'd believe him; it was the truth, after all, and he had no way to prove it to her otherwise.

"All right," Beckett said, giving him a small smile. "I'm keep you overnight, Pavel, and before you're released, I want you to speak with the ship's counselor," she went on, already aware of where his thoughts would go at her words; she patted his shoulder with one slim hand, and told him, "I know you promised him that I would be the only one you'd tell, but you need to talk about this with someone. That's why Starfleet sent Jennie with us, Pavel, and it is what she's trained to do – the Captain cannot make her repeat anything to him, no matter what he says or threatens."

"But he can with Doctor McCoy, can't he? Under the regulations governing Partners?" Pavel questioned. He'd read the regs once at Academy for a class, forgetting them promptly thereafter as they had little to do with his track of study. At least at the time they seemed to have little to do with the Command Track classwork – in practice, knowing the regs had been useful for the Captain and crew a thousand times over.

"With the general practitioners, he could if he chose to employ the regs – which he can't in this matter since I have already spoken with McCoy and his wishes are what I'll obey – but with the psych staff, he can't. Starfleet wrote the medical code specifically to state that no Captain of the fleet can order disclosure of a crew member's counseling or mental health status unless they are in danger of harming themselves or others," she explained, "You can tell her you'd anthropromorphized the ship and wanted to take _Enterprise_ on dates, and Jennie wouldn't tell a soul."

A few seconds ticked by, the cardiac monitor over McCoy's bed continuing to beep along rhythmically. It sounded nothing like the dripping that'd reverberated through the cell and yet that's all he could hear, the steady _drip-drip-drip_ from their prison in a loud staccato.

The volume increased in his ears, in his head, and he blinked suddenly, cutting off the noise with a half-shout of, "Yes!" Quieter, he said, "I will speak to Miss Jennie."

"I'll make sure to let her know you're to see her before you return to quarters." She nodded unconsciously, then pressed a button on the biobed control panel. "Get some rest, Ensign."


	2. The worst are full of passionate intensity

**V.**

  
After his release from Medical Bay following the incident on Dekkarat, Bones had understandably flinched away from contact, sexual or otherwise, and Jim had simply let him be. He knew it would pass for Bones as it did for him. Though normally he returned to _Enterprise_ looking to fuck as a reminder that he'd survived, he'd come home, he still had Bones, he also knew how it felt to return from a failed mission, stewing in guilt and bitterness, where the last thing on his mind was sex. It was a biological reaction to stress according to his lover and after the first four or five times it happened, he'd accepted that it wasn't going to change.

Yet, it'd been six weeks and McCoy continued to shy away, involuntarily, from contact. He was still waking in the middle of ship's night, trembling and scared in a harsh contrast from his adamant declarations that he was "fine", and unable to return to sleep. Jim had resorted to keeping a hypospray in their bedroom for the nights when Bones attempted to rise from the mattress with the intent of going to Medical Bay four to six hours before his shift.

It was draining Kirk's reserves and though he could not be called an oblivious man, he was well-versed in denial. His mother had taught him the concept at a young age, over coffee with the neighbors and talk of births and deaths. Her life had been about denial – denial of the depression that ate her life away a day at a time, denial of how haunted she was by George's last words that rang out in her mind every morning even twenty years later – and Jim had learned that lesson well.

He could no longer ignore the problem, however, when Beckett called him down to sickbay one morning. He'd been sitting on the bridge, he was merely watching the forward screen and thinking about how he wanted, badly, to take Bones to bed. How he wanted to strip the man out of his uniform, gently, and kiss every inch of skin he could: It wasn't all rough and hurried sex between them, and with time before their next destination, Jim couldn't get the idea of a romantic night out of his head. (Rare as it was, he knew Bones liked when Jim set up a nice dinner in their quarters and fucked him slow.)

"_Doctor Beckett to Captain Kirk,_" her voice rang out in the calm silence of the bridge.

From the corner of his eye, Jim could see Chekov immediately tense and he turned his gaze to the back of the young man's head as he responded, "Kirk here. What's the problem, Doctor?"

A sigh, then, "_Sir, I need to speak with you about a private matter related to one of the crew. If you have a moment this afternoon, I'd like to sit down and discuss it before the situation become further complicated or worsens._"

Chekov hunched forward, attention focused on the display panel as though he could preform some sort of Russian-Genius-Mind-Meld on it to attain the information he wanted. One hand came up to run through his hair as Jim told her he would do so as soon as he was off shift, then stood up and walked to the young man. "Commander, you have the conn. Ensign," he said, one hand on Chekov's shoulder, "Walk with me."

Loyal and properly subordinate, Pavel nodded, stood, and trained his eyes on the back of his Captain's gold uniform tunic as they left the Bridge behind for the privacy of Kirk's ready room. There, two fingers of deliciously aged whiskey were poured into glasses and one was shoved unceremoniously into Chekov's waiting hand.

"Captain," he started after he'd polished off the drink, but Jim held up a hand to stop him and he closed his mouth with a nod of his head.

"Pavel, I didn't ask you here in an official capacity – I asked as a friend." Jim settled into the chair beside the young man instead of the comfortable one on the other side of his desk, stretched one hand onto Chekov's shoulder, and went on without hesitation, "You were on Dekkarat with Bones and whatever happened has changed him. He's himself, personality wise, but it's like someone's sucked the fucking life out of him and he's doing everything by rote."

Chekov didn't say anything. He didn't need to, if only because everything Kirk was saying, he agreed with and had already thought himself. The doctor was floundering in nightmares borne of memories, which Kirk didn't know, but Pavel was sure the man soon would – he couldn't take it any longer, watching the slow disintegration of a man who'd fought to protect him.

"Something happened on the planet that maybe they told you not to tell or you're not sure if the event really occurred for some reason, maybe you both decided it would be better or easier not to speak of it," Jim said, "I've lived all those choices myself over the last few years and even before, but I'm asking you now – as someone who's actually worried for you both – to tell me."

"I'm not the one they went after, sir."

"No, but you were still there, Chekov, you still had to be there when they hurt him. And it doesn't take someone with your IQ," Jim smiled sadly at that and patted the other man's arm, continuing, "to see how much it took from you as well. I mean I haven't seen you in rec since the week before you were captured, Sulu reported that you've kept yourself reclused to quarters most days and that you've had some nightmares yourself."

"It's nothing," Chekov told him, hoping to shrug it off and drank down the next shot Jim poured without a hint of reluctance. He twirled the glass in a circle, unable and unwilling to look the other in the eye; he didn't need to see the look on Jim's face to know there would be disbelief written in his features.

Jim sighed and rose, moving toward the window behind his desk to watch the flicker of the stars as _Enterprise_ zipped by. He was trying to decide his next move, his next words, when Chekov cleared his throat and Jim turned to glance over his shoulder at the Ensign.

A moment of silence passed and Jim was almost sure it hadn't been an attempt to garner his attention, then Chekov spoke and he felt the bile rise from his stomach.

**VI.**

  
McCoy was dead on his feet.

Afters six weeks of barely sleeping, nightmares terrorizing what bit of rest he could get, he was running out of steam; eating, staying hydrated, working, those where no problem – he wasn't some fainting maiden who was going to break down, crying out about the vapors, while clinging to Jim like some sort of limpet. He was a grown man, damnit, and he was able to deal with his problems.

Of course, that was as much bullshit as the crap he'd fed Chekov on the planet about him being better equipped to deal with the sexual assaults and the physical abuse; he wasn't, in any manner of speaking, better trained to get through such vitriolic events unless one meant the after effects – doctors were meant to treat the men returning from such situations, not be the victim. In that instance, Chekov truly was the better option, but he was a young man with a glowing smile and Bones simply hadn't been able to handle the mere thought of not listening to the boy's laughter, seeing him dash down corridors in off hours grinning at some strange joke...

So he'd demanded to take Chekov's place, a gamble he won, and now he was paying for it in restless nights and a lack of concentration.

He knew he was skirting the line of what Chapel and Beckett would allow, that they'd watched his movements with M'Benga while they worried over him and he wanted to scream – it was his damned Medical Bay. He'd handpicked his staff, had trained them and bonded with them over poker and whiskey in his and Jim's quarters. He'd counseled them through tough times and celebrated the good ones, sent messages personally to the families of the few he'd lost.

"Doctor," Chapel's voice was strong at his back and he spun his chair around to look at her. She was wearing the same look of concern she'd had since he'd woken two days after the rescue, screaming out involuntarily at the disgusting power of his nightmare.

"Something you need, nurse?" He responded, using her title as a reminder that he was the one in charge of sickbay and thus could not be dismissed to quarters – as he knew multiple members of his staff wanted.

Of course, Jim could come down from the bridge to drag his ass back to bed, but that wasn't going to happen. Kirk wouldn't leave the bridge unless absolutely necessary, nor would he drag Bones to bed; flashbacks at the most inopportune times had murdered their sex life, though he'd continued to let Jim believe that he was simply too tired to get it up. Which given the nightmares that'd made it impossible to sleep, it was the truth – erections weren't going to occur when his brain process in bed was reduced to a recurring chant of _sleepsleepsleeppleasegodstayasleep_.

"Christine," she corrected.

He managed to stop the groan before it slipped from his lips. "Until you are off duty in," his eyes flicked to the chrono, "thirty-two minutes, you're still my nurse. If you want to stage an intervention, you can do so then. Go back to work."

The look she gave him was laced in venom, reminiscent of the pinched, angry face one of the guards had perpetually displayed.

Giving himself a mental slap to stop the memory before it came to fruition in the form of a flashback, Bones returned his hands to the PADD he'd been engrossed in earlier. He read it mechanically, never really comprehending the words of the synth-narcotic study Medical had recently conducted; so focused on keeping himself from glancing out his door to the treatment area (where Chapel and Beckett were no doubt conspiring against him), he never saw Jim's approach.

Then his office door was closed and his head snapped up, fear in his eyes for a fleeting moment. It dropped away so quickly Jim wasn't entirely sure he'd even seen it, but he knew from Chekov's halting, sad rendition of events from the planet, that it had been there.

"We need to talk," he started before McCoy could throw up a defense, something he'd done a few weeks earlier and Jim had allowed at the time.

While communication hadn't been a problem in the past, they'd never been the emotionally open type of partners, not like Spock and Uhura had been. Those two, at the hight point of their relationship, had often been found on observation decks late at night, discussing mothers, griefs, and triumphs. It had fascinated Jim whose own relationship with McCoy was strong, but filled with far less talk about the pains and joys of life.

And they'd been completely fine with that – conversations about how they were feeling weren't their style; intimacy was, whether that meant curling up in bed, spooned together against terrible, saddening memories, or they had hurried, rough sex, depended entirely on the triggering event. It was their way and they'd never had an issue with it.

Now, however, sex was the last way they'd connect until Bones had agreed to therapy in Jim's mind and while it was going to be painful and awkward, they had to talk before the situation they'd found themselves in worsened. McCoy was quite literally on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, M'Benga and Beckett having already decided that if he could not submit to taking a few days off to rest that they would override their CMO and force the issue. Warning Jim of that danger had simply been a courtesy since the Medical Code allowed for such actions without the express consent of the Captain.

"I'm on duty," Bones responded.

"No, you're not – your shift ends now." Jim moved closer to the heavy desk and sat in one of the chairs before it with a choked sigh, then went on, "Listen, I suck at this emotional crap. Mom wasn't big on talking it out and Frank's preferred form of communication was yelling with a side of drunken terror. But we're going to try it, you and me, because you're struggling with something you think I'm not going to handle well and I'd rather do the girly-handholdy thing then watch you turn into a fucking zombie."

McCoy gripped the armrests of his own chair, cushioned fabric harsh under the pads of his fingers. He started to rise, only to fall back into the seat as his knees gave out: apparently today was to be the day that he reached the end of his limits. Which meant he could not escape Jim and his questions, his facts, his concerned fucking eyes.

He tried to stop it, but the anxiety flooded his mind and he dazedly threw up on the floor, his body spasming from the force of his esophageal reflux. Breakfast had been eggs and toast, just bland enough to ease the subconscious roil in his gut. The scent of it hit his nose like a punch to the face and he reeled back into his chair, looking at Jim with horror – this had never happened to him before.

Kirk felt his stomach drop out. Damnit, Bones was a red-blooded male and he did not just keel over to vomit on his own shoes, not without some mitigating factor. He snorted at the latter part of his thought: Oh yeah, there was one _hell_ of a mitigating factor.

"Fuck," he muttered, loathing that he'd allowed this farce to go on as long as it had. "Emotional upsets causing physical reactions..."

"Don't, Jim," McCoy warned though his usual masterful tone was lost as his stomach cramped again, forcing himself to bend forward once more at the waist and begin dry heaving. He was so absorbed in trying to stop the painful retching that he was oblivious to Jim's call for aid.

All he knew, a minute and a half later, was the peace of sedation, Chapel having already been standing by with a hypospray.

****

VII.

  
Bones woke in their bed twelve hours later, feeling as exhausted as he had when Christine forced him into unconsciousness though he'd had no nightmare and he felt a surge of triumph at that. Which was promptly cut down by the grim look on Jim's face.

Sitting beside him on the mattress, Kirk was taut with tension and obviously upset, his fingers pulsing beet-red and milk-white where they held an unread requisition PADD. He looked like _he_ hadn't slept causing Bones to involuntarily purse his lips in annoyance – Jim was the Captain and needed to maintain his physical condition to continue being a member of the landing parties.

"You," Jim started, startling McCoy who had not realized his lover had noticed his awakening, "told my Ensign to promise the he would not tell me that you'd been sexually assaulted. I can only surmise that you never intended to tell me yourself either."

"Clearly you've figured it out," Bones shot back, suddenly angry and he sat up in the bed, reaching for the edge of the blanket Jim had wrapped around him.

"Our quarters are on a twelve hour medical lockdown – you can get out of this bed, but so help me, Bones, you're not getting out of this conversation. We're talking about this before you keel over. Again." Jim's tone was level and controlled, but the emotion underly it was hard, sad, and a touch terrified. "You aren't fucking sleeping and if we don't fix this, Beckett's going to have to report to Command that you are temporarily unfit for duty. You know what'll happen after that," Jim added, blue eyes looking anywhere but at his lover.

It broke his heart to think of the regs: A CMO, unfit for service, was to be removed from their post and returned to Earth. If such was impossible to do, then they were to be confined to quarters or Medical Bay where they could be cared for until such time as they could be found a route to Starfleet's Headquarters, to be assessed and treated by someone who reported directly to the CMO of the Fleet, the Surgeon General Jack Quinn; Bones would be taken from his ship and from him, up to such time that he was cleared to serve once more.

Kirk knew that there would be no long hospitalization nor years of therapy for his lover as it simply wouldn't be necessary given that Bones needed sleep more than anything else, but with just under a year left in the mission, the amount of time it would take for all the steps to be taken to return McCoy to his place on the ship would be too long. He couldn't allow that, not after all the accomplishments and discoveries they'd made in the last four years – McCoy deserved to stand with his colleagues and friends when they disembarked and be praised for what he'd done, not ignored in the news reports.

He threw the PADD suddenly and rolled, forcing Bones onto his back and looming over him. "Talk to me. Tell me what happened, please," he said, trailing off. Jim knew he now sounded far too desperate, only his fingers were twitching to hypo his partner and his brain was screaming to run before he really did hear what had occurred on the planet out of McCoy's own mouth, and he ignored both vicious urges.

"Chekov already told you. Why is it so important for me to say it, Jim?" Bones asked, closing his eyes at his mutinous stomach. As if he hadn't already embarrassed himself by vomiting, his belly was roiling once more at Jim's request.

"Because I fucking _love_ you," Jim replied, shoving his hands hard into the mattress which caused it to bounce. "I love you and if you dare to try to make this about me looking for sex, so help me, Bones – I've been watching you walk around like goddamn ghost for the last month and a half. You're doing all the right things, but you're dazed, out of it, and..."

"And the crew is seeing it." Bones shrugged at the thought; Jim was a good Captain and he would not tolerate anyone lowering morale or creating problems.

"No, baby," Jim said, immediately getting McCoy's attention with the endearment. He knew McCoy hated it, hated being called anything but the stupid nickname Jim had given him on that first shuttle ride to the Academy, yet Jim could not bring himself to care. He was lost in the outpouring of words that was beyond being out of character for him, unable to stop as he looked down at the man beneath him. "I'm seeing it. And I've done nothing about it because I thought you were dealing with whatever the issue was, but you're not. So you've got the choice of me, right here and now, or Alyson Beckett in twelve hours, or one of Quinn's lackeys whenever you get back to Earth."

Bones was silent. Cloudy, hazel-green eyes locked with Jim's, warring emotions glittering in the blue, and he wondered, not for the first time, how he had come to be the focus of Kirk's attentions. Overprotective as he may be, stubborn too, Jim was like the Time Lord from the old Earth TV show, Doctor Who: _He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun._ Jim was intensity and spontaneity in one confounding package that often left Bones thinking about irony, fate, and nature versus nurture.

And once he had something stuck in his craw he wasn't going to let it go, not until he was satisfied with the resolution.

"They were going to take the kid, Jim," he finally relented and disentangled one hand from the blanket, bringing it up to rest on Kirk's shoulder. "Figured better me than him," he went on, squeezing the flesh under his fingers, "I didn't fucking want to trade places with him, but he's a damned infant compared to the rest of this crew..."

Jim shook his head with a tiny, depressed smile on his lips. "He was trained at the Academy, Bones – command track cadets are taught about torture and how to deal. Rape's not specific to Earth, you know that."

"Bastard," McCoy snapped as his hand whipped away and he pushed at Jim's chest, unsurprised when his lover wouldn't move. A few minutes passed, each dispassionate throw of his hands another nail in his coffin as it sunk in that he was too tired to escape Jim's presence. He collapsed back against the mattress and pursed his lips, before spitting, "And you think the Medical contingent's any less able to deal with the consequences?"

"No, but they're the _consequences_! Bones, you guys are taught how to keep us grunts from going to pieces over events we cannot control, you aren't supposed to be the ones we have to put back together. _I'm_ the headstrong guy you sew up, clean up, and throw to the counselor," Jim tried to explain. He was at a loss of how to put it precisely, how to explain that though he hated to say it, Bones should have let Chekov be the one they were watching try to sleep and failing.

McCoy had listened to his lover's lackluster statements with rapt attention, realization taking over his mind while Jim's skin twitched from the renewed anxiety. He let a minute go by once Jim finished as well, still absorbing what the man hadn't chosen to say.

Almost of its own accord, Bones' hand settled back on Jim's shoulder and he spoke.


End file.
